Wednesday, December 19, 2012

This Week's "Anxious Bench" Post at Patheos: "Have a Countercultural Christmas This Year"

“Dad, why do people who are not Christians still celebrate Christmas?”

This is the kind of insightful question that can only come from the
mouth of a nine-year-old. My daughter wonders why people who do not
attend church still have Christmas trees, bake Christmas cookies, put
colored lights on their houses, go to Christmas parties, and give gifts
on December 25. To phrase her question differently, she wants to know
how Christmas—the birth of the baby Jesus– became embedded in American
culture to the point that it could be celebrated by her non-church-going
friends and their families.

From the perspective of the Bible and Christian theology, Christmas
is about the Incarnation. It is the story of God revealing himself to
humankind in the form of a baby, the child born to Mary in that Bethlehem stable. Indeed, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…But in America, the biblical and theological meaning of Christmas has
always existed in tension with cultural forces that have sought to draw
one’s focus away from the “Reason for the season.”

In fact, for most of American history, the birth of the Savior has
taken a back seat to the merriment and commercialism of that “most
wonderful time of the year.”

Do you wish we could go back to a simpler time when our society
understood what Christmas was really about? I am writing to tell you
that such a Christmas golden age has never existed in America. Let me
explain.